Since this weeks theme is Valentine's Day, it's only appropriate that I share a snippet from Pink Valentine, which is free until 2/15/16. This book was sort of an accident. I was scrolling through covers and fell in love with this one, so I bought it. Then hmm, what to do with it? Finally I decided to bring the cover to life with a short, sweet story.

The woman with the flower in her toes, that's Cheryl. Her husband, Troy, isn't to happy with her right now so he's about to make her Valentine's Day a little redder and a little hotter. You just gotta love a man with purpose :)

“I guess I’ll have the special Margie,” Cheryl said as she handed the waitress her menu without looking at it. “A coffee too please,” she added with a sigh.
“Rough night honey?” Margie asked sticking her pencil behind her ear.
“You could say that.”
“I’ll have the same, sweetheart,” Troy said slipping into the booth across from his wife.
“Everything alright with you two?” Margie asked looking from one to the other.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Well I guess that settles that,” Margie laughed shaking her head as she walked away.
“What are you doing here?” Cheryl hissed.
“Having breakfast with my wife,” Troy calmly replied. “It is Valentine’s Day after all.”
“I don’t care what day it is, I don’t want to have breakfast with you,” Cheryl snapped as she fiddled with the silverware on the table. “Not after last night.”
“What about last night?”
“You know very well what I’m talking about,” Cheryl said leaning forward, her blue eyes narrowed in accusation. “I don’t like threats.”
“That wasn’t a threat,” Troy laughed. “I definitely think you should consider it more of a promise, considering how you behaved.”
They were both quiet when Maggie approached with their coffee. Cheryl’s glare returned the moment the waitress turned away.
“I didn’t do anything,” she insisted, tilting her chin up defiantly.
“You took a swing at me,” Troy replied, his eyes sparkling with humor at the absurdity of it all. Imagine his petite little wife thinking she could actually get away with something like that.
“I missed,” Cheryl snapped back.
“It was with a bat, baby,” Troy shot back before sipping his coffee.
“A plastic one,” Cheryl drawled, rolling her eyes. “I bought it for our nephew’s birthday. Don’t be so dramatic.”
“It was the intent that matters. Why would you even think that was okay?”
“Why were you snooping in my closet?” Cheryl demanded.
“First of all that’s not your closet, it’s the guestroom closet. And second of all, I wasn’t snooping. I was looking for… Thank you Margie,” Troy said, smiling at the older woman as she set two plates on the table in front of them.
Cheryl looked down at the heart-shaped pancakes topped with whipped cream and fresh strawberries and opened her mouth to reply just as her husband popped one of his strawberries between her lips.
“As I was saying, I was looking for my old golf bag. There’s a kid at work I want to give it to. How was I supposed to know you had some sort of secret stash in there? All this time while I’ve been brown bagging it, you’ve obviously been using your lunch hour to shop. We’re supposed to be saving money for our vacation.”
“I can’t go on vacation without the proper wardrobe,” Cheryl shot back.
“Just what kind of wardrobe do you think you’ll need at that cabin in the woods?” he asked with a snort as he cut into his pancakes.
“All this is beside the point,” Cheryl whispered angrily as she poked his shin with her high heeled shoe. Tucking her blonde hair behind her ear she leaned forward. “You can’t just go around threatening to spank people. I work too you know and I can spend some money on what I want.”
“Let’s be clear here,” her husband replied. “I’m not spanking you because you spent money even though it’s not what we agreed on. I’m going to spank you because you took a swing at me.”
“Wrong again, big boy,” she sassed, giving him another poke with her toe. “You’re not spanking me at all.”
Troy grinned. “We’ll see,” he drawled, “and if you poke me one more time with that shoe you might just get your spanking right here in this diner in front of God and everyone.”